


before we shut this engine down

by typefortydeductions



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, driving bucky home, sam wilson is the only level-headed person in the car
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 10:10:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2021112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typefortydeductions/pseuds/typefortydeductions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Bucky watch each other sleep, and Sam watches them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	before we shut this engine down

He is asleep, and you are watching him. He looks young, the bones under his skin fragile –  _breakable._ There are a hundred different ways to crush them, a hundred different ways that you recall without effort, but you do not, you do not, and your fingers clench into fists, the nails of your right hand drawing blood in half-moon warnings that you ignore – do not notice – and you must not, you cannot, and you know this like you know the cold in your bones, like the way his eyelids flutter as he sleeps and the way you listen for a wheeze in his breaths, the way – the way he looks so  _young_ , and you hold onto this like

 

like

 

like –-

 

He looks so young, and the man driving is glancing in the rear-view mirror, and you catalogue his every move without thinking about it, and you ripped him out of the sky but still he smiles, wide and unbowed, and there is something in your chest that knows when  _he_ was young

 

before

 

(before?)

 

before the cold

 

When he – when he was small and young and –

Different

But – but still –

 

He used to smile like that too.

 

He used to smile at you.

 

At.

 

At me.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

He is asleep, and you are watching him. He’s finally succumbed to exhaustion, and you don’t know how long it has been since he allowed himself to do so, but his eyes are swollen and puffy, bloodshot. They are closed now, but his fingers are curled into the fabric of his pants, digging into his legs, and you wish –

You wish you could reach over and unfurl his fingers, cradle them in yours, but you catch Sam’s eyes in the mirror, wide with worry, and you can still see Bucky’s face as he walked into your hotel room. The desperation in his eyes, the way they wouldn’t stop moving, scanning and cataloguing, and now his muscles twitch as he sleeps, and his mouth moves but he is silent, so silent (and you can’t think about that, not now, because the priority is Bucky, and if you think about it then you’re not sure you can stop yourself, stop yourself from –)

 

He doesn’t look young as he sleeps.

 

He looks terrified.

 

(And your heart is breaking, nails digging into your palms as you stop yourself from reaching out, half-moon warnings of broken bones and broken trust, and you don’t, you don’t, you  _can’t_ )

 

You stop yourself, because you must.

 

You have to.

 

For Bucky.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

They are asleep, and you are watching them. Twin too-shallow too-sharp breaths, and you can see the echoes of stifled screams in the clenching of their jaws. Have seen it in countless others. Too many.

 

And maybe you’ve never see  _this_ before – hey, you’re pretty sure no-one has – but you recognise the haunted desperation in – in – in  _Barnes’_ eyes, the way he’s reaching for something that isn’t solid anymore, scrabbling, panicked.

Terrified.

 

And you’ve only known Steve for a handful of months, but you already know well the glint in his eyes that says he won’t back down. That he won’t allow himself to do so. That he can’t.

 

And maybe you were wrong when you said he couldn’t be saved. Maybe Captain America can win this fight.

 

Cause he sure as hell won’t be fighting alone.

 


End file.
